-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Scientists have captured antimatter atoms for the first time , a breakthrough that could eventually help us to understand the nature and origins of the universe .

Researchers at CERN , the Geneva-based particle physics laboratory , have managed to confine single antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap .

This will allow them to conduct a more detailed study of antihydrogen , which will in turn allow scientists to compare matter and antimatter .

Understanding antimatter is one of the biggest challenges facing science -- most theoretical physicists and cosmologists believe that at the Big Bang , when the universe was created , matter and antimatter were produced in equal amounts .

However , as our world is made up of matter , antimatter seems to have disappeared .

Understanding antimatter could shed light on why almost everything in the known universe consists of matter .

Antimatter has been very difficult to handle because matter and antimatter do n't get on , destroying each other instantly on contact in a violent flash of energy .

In a precursor to today 's experiment , in 2002 scientists at CERN produced antihydrogen atoms in large quantities , but they had an incredibly short lifespan -- just several milliseconds -- because the antihydrogen came into contact with the walls of their containers and the two annihilated each other .

In this latest experiment the lifespan of the antihydrogen atoms was extended by using magnetic fields to trap them and thus prevent them from coming into contact with matter .

The researchers created 38 antihydrogen atoms and held on to them for about a tenth of a second , which is long enough to study them says Professor Jeffrey Hangst , one of the team of CERN scientists who worked on the program .

Hangst and his colleagues produced a magnet field which was strongest near the walls of the trap , falling to a minimum at the center , causing the atoms to collect there in a vacuum .

`` We could have held them for much longer ... I am just full of joy and relief , it 's taken us five years to get here , this is a big milestone , '' Hangst told CNN .

To trap just 38 atoms , they had to run the experiment 335 times , says Nature which published the report findings .

Hangst added : `` This was ten thousand times more difficult than creating untrapped antihydrogen atoms .

`` This will help us understand the structure of space and time . For reasons that no one yet understands , nature ruled out antimatter ... this inspires us to work that much harder to see if antimatter holds some secret . ''

Malcolm Longair , professor of natural philosophy at Cambridge University , told CNN that CERN 's results were a considerable achievement .

`` At the Big Bang we believe the temperatures were very very high and we understand in theory why antimatter disappeared but there is no physical theory to back it up . ''

Antimatter was first predicted in 1931 by the British physicist Paul Dirac , who theorized that antimatter is ordinary matter in reverse .

CERN 's next ambition is to create a beam of antimatter which they hope will allow them to unpeel more of the mysteries surrounding it .

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Antihydrogen atoms were trapped in a magnetic field

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Matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact

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`` It 's taken us five years to get here , '' says Professor Jeffrey Hangst

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CERN 's next ambition is to create a beam of antimatter